A Revolt of the Generals?

Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt waits to give media interviews at the Ministry of Defence on October 13, 2006, in London. General Sir Richard has stated that British military foces in Iraq should "get out some time soon."

Soldiers are supposed to follow orders. But top generals are also supposed
to guide their political masters so the orders make sense  and in the end, to
object if they don't. So, in the face of mounting casualties and political
chaos in Iraq and no clear strategy for victory, it was only a matter of time before military commanders on the ground would start publicly voicing their contrary opinions.

That's just what happened this week, though it took a British and not an American general to start the dialogue. The straight-talking chief of the British Army, Gen. Richard
Dannatt, gave interviews to the London Daily Mail and the BBC that had 10 Downing
Street scrambling. Though he pointed out that British troops had made
enough progress to turn over control of two southern provinces to Iraqi forces, he
also noted that they weren't invited in at the outset and are widely
unpopular.

"It's an absolute fact that in some parts of the country, the fact that we
are there causes people to attack us, and in that sense, our presence
exacerbates violence," he said. The original hope of installing a liberal democratic
government is out of reach and might have been "na´ve." "We should aim for
a lower ambition," he argued  just keeping Iraq a unitary state. He has "much
more optimism we can get it right in Afghanistan" than in Iraq. Though the British
army "doesn't do surrender," he said he wanted its 7,000 troops out "sometime
soon" because "time is not our friend  we can't be here forever at this level. I
have an army to look after, which is going to be successful in current
operations, but I want an army in five years' time, ten years' time; I
don't want to break it on this one."

When officials working for Tony Blair got first reports of Dannatt's
newspaper interview, they were baffled and wondered why he had taken the army's top
job if he disagreed with its principal mission. When the full text arrived, they
determined he was not frontally criticizing Blair's current policy, which
also favors an exit from Iraq as soon as Iraqi forces can take over, but instead
was sticking up for his beloved army in a way someone more media-savvy might
have done without leaving so many hostages to tabloid fortune. At a press
conference, in fact, Blair tried to put a good spin on it all by saying he agreed with "every word" of Dannatt's statements.

Nevertheless, while the general's views may not technically diverge from
Blair's policy, they certainly remind the public in a way that embarrasses
Downing St. as well as Washington  how difficult if not impossible that policy will be to achieve. Blair
would never state that his ambitions for Iraq might have been na´ve, that British
troops are a magnet for attack or should leave soon. The fact that
Dannatt's views are widely shared among senior officers only intensifies the awkwardness
for the Prime Minister.

In Washington, even though Coalition forces have been fighting in Iraq
nearly as long as Americans fought the Axis during World War II, serving officers have
been more circumspect. Recent criticism of U.S. strategy and tactics is easy to
find from retired officers, such as Marine Gen. Tony Zinni, former head of the
Central Command, which has responsibility for Iraq and Afghanistan, who
recently called the U.S. approach "bankrupt." But whatever sharp talk may be uttered
in the Pentagon gets sanded down by the time it reaches the outside world.

Ambitious officers remember the fate of Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki,
who was frozen out by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld after testifying in
2003 that an occupation force of "several hundred thousand" would be required in
Iraq  which contradicted Rumsfeld's conviction that a much smaller force
would be sufficient. Shinseki was right, but Rumsfeld is still in charge. No
senior U.S. officer has been fired or disciplined for mistakes or incompetent
execution in Iraq, including Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the general in
command in Iraq at the time of Abu Ghraib, who was allowed to retire
quietly.

Nor has Gen. John Abizaid, the Centcom commander who has been a key
decision maker, been openly criticized or sharply questioned by Congress about
his strategy. The get-along, go-along culture of the top brass creates tensions with officers in
Iraq, who complain that their requests for more troops are often ignored
because senior officers do not want to deliver more bad news to the
Pentagon. A sharp contrast is provided by the Israeli military, which started an
inquiry into its own failures in Lebanon last summer even before the fighting
ended. "The Israelis demand accountability for poor performance, but the U.S.
military and political establishment are not willing to raise questions about their
own failures and the fact that nearly 3,000 Americans have now lost their
lives," says a former U.S. military officer.

Surviving the slippery slopes of power may be hard for generals, and of
course it is right that they respect civilian control by not wading into political
debates. But with lives are at stake, Dannatt felt compelled to speak: "Honesty is
what it is all about. The truth will out. We have got to speak the
truth."